It was sweet, good and fun for everyone. The Philadelphia Honey Festival, held last weekend, proved to bee the queen bee of festivals — one sweet treat. If you missed this year’s festival, mark your calendar for next September, and bee ready to buzz over there. Besides honey tastings from local beekeepers with jars of honey and honeycomb for sale, there were hive demonstrations, honey extractions, plant sales and children’s activities, along with music and a cooking contest. Additionally, two authors were on hand and discussed their new books – one a bee thriller about colony collapse disorder, sprinkled with suspense and romance, and the other about urban beekeeping. Libations made with honey for sampling included mead and Colonial porter — both “unbee-lievaby” tasty.

If you happened to be listening to Red Barber’s radio commentary one night back in 1943, you’d know that the term “rhubarb” is baseball slang for a heated argument on the ball field. It seems that Barber, the announcer for what were then the Brooklyn Dodgers, learned of the term from two sports reporters who had been speaking with a Brooklyn bartender. The bartender had described a barroom argument over baseball where a Brooklyn fan shot a Giants fan as a “rhubarb.” From the baseball field to the farmer’s field, rhubarb is one of Mother Nature’s first gifts of the growing season. You can also grow rhubarb in your garden, but it takes a few years to become established before you can pick it.

“I had my first kiss on your street,” said the salesman who just sold my younger son, Ted, his first new car. “We were under a big, old tree, and I can’t even remember the girl’s name.” Turns out that our salesman grew up in our neighborhood and had gone to the same grade school as my sons. Our sales guy chuckled as he punched the calculator to give us the drive-out price. I chuckled as I wondered whether it was that kiss or the commission that was bringing this man such obvious joy.

Kristine and Bill Shaffer, Northern Liberties residents, were wed on March 7 at the Philadelphia International Flower Show — only the second wedding ever held there. The couple's cake was designed by the team from the television show "Cake Boss."